The Kudema River, Baba Ganya, Old People

Right after the village, a river flowed with a mesmerizing and incomprehensible name: Kudёma. It was just a river, one among the lesser ones. Even boats rarely went along it. But still, there was something inexplicable about Kudёma—an elusive secret in the unhurried flow of dark waters, in the smooth outlines of bends, in the wooded frame of its banks.

Not far from the village, the floodplain sloped down to the river: it almost matched it, and then a low, peaty step ended abruptly in Kudёma’s muddy shallows.

A convenient place for fishing.

Often, Vasily came here with a bucket and two fishing rods on his shoulder. Vasily was a reclusive forty-two-year-old man, quiet, with sadness that never left his eyes. He avoided the villagers, lived on the outskirts, in a small house near the cemetery. And even the kind of work he chose suited him: he was a night watchman at a warehouse. In appearance, it was the most ordinary man. Muscular, stocky, with thick dark mustaches and a kind, narrowed-eye gaze, despite the harshness of his character.

People tried, without realizing it, to avoid talking to him so as not to disturb his inner sorrow. But if they had to speak, they did it carefully, as friendly and cheerful as possible, and behind his back they felt sorry for Vasily—sympathized with his lonely, almost hermit life.

And the culprit for everything was the river Kudёma…